Pak Parliamentary committee issues summons to Mansoor Ijaz

January 16, 2012 20:20 IST

Hours after controversial Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz failed to turn up before a judicial commission probing the memo scandal, a Pakistani parliamentary committee on Monday summoned him to appear before it on January 26.

The committee further asked Ijaz, Pakistan's former envoy to the United States Husain Haqqani and Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha to submit statements on the memo issue by January 23.

The Parliamentary Committee on National Security asked Ijaz to appear before it to give his views on the alleged memo that had sought US help to stave off a feared military takeover in Pakistan after the killing of Osama bin Laden in May last year.

Raza Rabbani, a senior Pakistan People's Party leader who chairs the committee, said a notice has been issued asking Ijaz to appear before the panel at 3 pm on January 26.

The

notice will be delivered to Ijaz through the Pakistani mission in the country where he is currently living, Rabbani told reporters.

The

panel asked the Attorney General to provide it details of the government's efforts to obtain details of BlackBerry communications between Ijaz and Haqqani from the Canadian firm Research In Motion.

RIM

has rejected Pakistan's request to provide the data of communications between the two men.

Earlier in the day, Ijaz failed to make a scheduled appearance before the Supreme Court-appointed

judicial commission that is also investigating the memo scandal.

He sought time till January 25

to appear before the judicial commission. Rabbani said the parliamentary panel had decided to summon Ijaz on January 26 as he was expected to come to Pakistan the preceding day.